CHAPTER SIXTEEN || DANIEL
The cabin was too quiet without the twins. In the past week, I’d already gotten hopelessly used to the background hum of Hunter and Lee around me at all times. Without them, the cabin seemed too cold, too empty, and way too quiet.
Lee was coordinating tonight’s hunt with Reed and Harris, along with most of the rest of the pack.
And Hunter was working the day shift at the bar.
Lindsey, who operated her own tiny veterinary clinic in Crescent Springs, had needed to deal with an emergency—a frantic dog owner in town had called to tell Lindsey her pup had chewed up a bag of dish pods and showed signs of poisoning.
Hunter took over the bar so that Lindsey could go save the pooch.
Which left me here, alone. I probably could’ve gone with Lee, but my job was pretty simple and Harris and Reed couldn’t really advise me on any spellcasting tactics.
I already knew I’d stay close to the pack—to Lee and Hunter especially—and then use my magic to paralyze the Mara, so that the rest of the pack could destroy them.
Barring that, I’d use my light spell to drive the monsters away.
I didn’t need anyone to go over how to do that with me.
It should have felt like a luxury. I had room to stretch and plenty of silence to think.
I could even take a nap if I wanted. Hunter and Lee had been keeping me plenty busy in the bedroom and I was deliciously sore.
Not that I was complaining, of course. But a little extra shut-eye wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Especially since we were going to hunt down the Mara later.
But when I tried to sleep, I found that I’d already gotten way too used to the specific arrangement of us, with my body securely between theirs, Hunter’s arm across my waist, Lee’s hand over my heart, our breathing perfectly in sync. Sleeping alone felt weird now.
Besides that, my mind wouldn’t shut off. I kept turning the sympathetic manifestations over, worrying the problem like a dog with a bone.
We’d gathered as a full pack after just over a week of quarantine. Reed and Harris were right. The chaotic magic rippling through the pack already seemed to be more or less gone.
That was… strange.
That wasn’t how the journals described it at all. Things had lessened over time, organically, diminishing in intensity and trailing off. They hadn’t just stopped suddenly, as if someone had pumped the brakes on uncontrollable surges of wild magic.
Or as if it suddenly went somewhere else.
But that was a ridiculous thought, wasn’t it? Where else could it have gone? Apart from the members of the pack who’d left during Jeremy’s reign—all of whom were still mystically bound to the pack—there was nowhere else for the magic to go. We were a closed circuit, magically speaking.
Maybe it was different for a pack of werewolves. We were far less magical, by definition, than a coven of witches. Maybe Lee was right and that was all this was. Maybe I was worrying too much, overthinking a blessing into a curse.
Thinking of him, and Hunter fast on his heels, a fresh wave of longing rolled through me.
After twenty minutes, I gave up trying to sleep. Instead, I found myself pacing, restless.
The cabin was cluttered with the research materials we had borrowed but hadn’t returned yet.
Practically every area in the cabin—except the kitchen—was now piled with crumbling leather-bound tomes with sticky notes sticking out of them at all angles.
There were even piles of books on either end of the couch—the neatly stacked books Lee had gone through, and the smaller, haphazardly stacked collection of journals Hunter had been reading.
Half-heartedly, I wondered if I ought to clean. But there was no point. We still needed the texts, which meant that it would be a wasted effort. Besides, I had no idea which texts the twins had and hadn’t gone through yet. If I cleaned, I’d likely screw that up.
No, right now I needed to do something else. Preferably something mindless to distract myself.
I made myself a cup of tea to settle my nerves.
It was Lipton’s, the only thing the twins had in the house, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I grabbed the top blanket off the bed and threw it over my shoulders and sat down on the couch, at Hunter’s end.
Feeling cozy, wrapped in the scent of the twins, I scrolled through the TV options before landing on a mindless reality show featuring couples trying to decide if they wanted to stay together.
I watched ten minutes of it, but it only made me miss the twins more.
Codependent much, Daniel? They’re coming back.
And I’d gone two years with them hating me. I could go an afternoon with them not hating me and off doing other things.
Right?
As if they’d heard me, my phone chimed. I picked it up and saw that Hunter had messaged me with: Bar is too quiet. Going out of my mind. Miss you.
I smiled, feeling warm all over. Hunter had never texted me before. He hadn’t needed to.
While I was typing a reply to him, my phone chimed again.
It was Lee this time, four messages, one after the other.
We’re probably going to be here until dark.
Harris still thinks he’s with the LAPD and he’s talking tactics.
You know how he gets.
Then the last message: I miss you.
I smiled and texted Hunter and Lee the same message: I miss you too.
I turned the dating show off and put on another episode of the baking challenge show I’d been watching the other night with the twins. It was weirdly soothing, even though I wasn’t much of a cook myself.
I set my tea on the coffee table—I’d only had a few sips, and it had already gone cold while I was holding it. I considered using a spell to warm it up again but decided against it. I’d need every ounce of my magical power for tonight. We had monsters to hunt.
Then I yawned. Maybe I’d take a nap here on the couch, after all. I stretched out, my gaze still fixed on the television.
The edge of the blanket caught on Hunter’s stack of books and sent the pile cascading across the floor.
“Shit.”
I threw the blanket off me, so it was safely out of the way. Then I dropped to my knees next to the pile of scattered journals to inspect the damage. The books were old and fragile, a priceless collection of arcane lore. Had my carelessness hurt the bindings?
To my relief, they seemed fine.
I restacked the books. Then, I felt a strange shiver up my spine when I picked up a journal with yellowed paper.
It was thick, bound in black leather, but otherwise plain and unremarkable.
I opened it to a page crammed with spiky handwriting.
The next page had alchemical symbols and diagrams. Some sort of ritual.
Huh.
Well, it had nothing to do with sympathetic manifestations or the Mara. It looked more like the author’s personal notes on some sort of alchemical project.
Idly, I turned the page. And then my breath caught in my lungs as I read the heading of the spell the author had carefully written out on the page: A Most Powerful Alchemical Incantation to Bind Opposite Elements into a New State of Matter.
No. There was no way. Was there?
I scanned the spell. It was intended to bind spiritual essences that had been gleaned from rare elements into a mundane vessel, to produce a powerful magical artifact.
Most spells to create enchanted objects only bound one magical essence, because it was dangerous to add other potentially unstable elements together.
It could easily create something that was dangerously volatile—either destroying the object and likely the caster as well, or else creating a cursed artifact.
The witch or warlock who had written this spell, however, had apparently figured out a way around that. The trick, according to their notes, was to combine all of the elements together at the same time, instead of trying to layer the enchantments on top of each other.
The ritual wasn’t just one spell, but several layered together. And it culminated in a powerful incantation that provided a catalyst for the rest of the ritual, seamlessly merging everything together at the same time.
I read the incantation—it was seven words in archaic Latin, using the imperative conjugation of the verbs—and my hands began trembling.
Because I could already tell that the incantation was enormously powerful, just by reading it silently in my head.
Six of the words built on each other, creating a deep well of power as they were chanted at length.
And then there was a single, seventh, word at the end that looked to be the author’s own invention, which activated it.
It was only spoken once, when the power had been fully raised and the spell was ready.
Though I’d need to translate the words to be absolutely certain, the incantation looked like it could easily be separated out from the rest of the ritual. Meaning that it could be plugged into a new spell.
For instance, one I’d already written, which was designed to unite the two very different halves of the same person into one whole again.
Clutching the book in my hands, I stood up sharply.
Everything else I’d been feeling fell away from me. Reality narrowed down to a single point. I had to be certain.
I grabbed a sticky note from the pack on the coffee table and bookmarked the page.
Then, with the journal tucked safely under my arm, I left the cabin I now shared with the twins and made my way across the commune to my own cabin. I pushed open the door and stepped inside.
I paused inside the threshold, struck by how small it suddenly seemed.
And how barren and devoid of my personality it really was—a stranger could’ve lived here.
Journals—mostly the collection I’d hastily brought with me from home—were strewn about the cabin.
Papers and notes, too. But apart from that, there was nothing of me here.
As though I’d spent years trying not to take up space, even in my own home.